At some point in life the world's beauty becomes enough. You don't need to photograph, paint or even remember it. It is enough. No record of it needs to be kept and you don't need someone to share it with or tell it to. When that happens — that letting go — you let go because you can.

A lot of black people believe that Jews in this country have become white. They behave like white people rather than Jewish people.

Black people have always been used as a buffer in this country between powers to prevent class war.

If you're going to hold someone down you're going to have to hold on by the other end of the chain. You are confined by your own repression.

To get to a place where you could love anything you chose--not to need permission for desire--well now _that_ was freedom.

True the Black woman did the housework, the drudgery; true, she reared the children, often alone, but she did all of that while occupying a place on the job market, a place her mate could not get or which his pride would not let him accept.And she had nothing to fall back on: not maleness, not whiteness, not ladyhood, not anything. And out of the profound desolation of her reality she may very well have invented herself.

Today is always here,' said Sethe. 'Tomorrow, never.